Category: ecological urbanism
-
Anne Whiston Spirn Lecture in Portland
An upcoming lecture by Anne Whiston Spirn entitled Restoring an Urban Watershed: Ecology, Equity, and Design will be happening on Monday, January 23rd, from Noon to 1pm at the Portland Building, 1120 SW Fifth Avenue – Second Floor, Room C. The brownbag is free and open to all. Here’s a synopsis. The West Philadelphia Landscape…
-
What is the Nature of Your City?
Across the world, cities are bringing back nature to help address urban challenges. We are healthier when we are closer to nature. We have a greater respect for the environment that sustains us. We are more adaptable to change when we let nature do its work. Join us for a free presentation by Dr. Timothy…
-
Unlocking LU 2: The Re-Representation of Urbanism
Continuing the thread of review for the new landscape urbanism website, I’m discussing ‘The Re-Representation of Urbanism’ by Gerdo Aquino, SWA Principal as well as educator and author of the book ‘Landscape Infrastructure’ (see L+U review here). As a fundamental opening to his essay, Aquino mentions the major shift that has taken place towards urbanization…
-
Unlocking Landscape Urbanism
Right before I took off on my travels, the brand new Landscape Urbanism website launched with its first issue. Due to the rigors of travel (you know, scenic vistas, wine, great food, etc.) I was not able to dig into the content before I left – but finally did manage to get all of it…
-
Reading the Landscape: The Emergence of Landscape Urbanism
The next essay from the Landscape Urbanism Reader is by David Grahame Shane, entitled ‘The Emergence of Landscape Urbanism’. This essay builds on Waldheim’s essay and further elaborates on the origins of the theory – with a broad take on the historical foundations and precedents around landscape urbanism as mentioned in the introductory text: “Shane…
-
Reading the Landscape: Landscape as Urbanism
The next essay in the Landscape Urbanism Reader, following ‘Terra Fluxus‘ and the initial ‘Reference Manifesto‘ is a longer essay by Waldheim exploring the idea that landscape is most suited to the modern metropolis, being “uniquely capable of responding to temporal change, transformation, adaptation, and succession… a medium uniquely suited to the open-endedness, indeterminacy, and…
-
Reading List: Landscape Infrastructure: Case Studies by SWA
‘Landscape Infrastructure: Case Studies by SWA‘ published in 2011, is edited by the Infrastructure Research Initiative of SWA including Los Angeles office principals Gerdo Aquino and Ying-Yu Hung. This is supplemented with contributions from Charles Waldheim, Julie Czerniak, Adriaan Geuze, Matthew Skjonsberg and Alexander Robinson. While ostensibly about landscape infrastructure, this type of book is…
-
Mississippi Modelling
An article that came up amidst discussions on the Landscape Urbanism Reader revisits the question of scale brought by up Linda Pollak in her essay ‘Constructed Ground’. On Design Observer, Kristi Dykema Cheramie investigates the wonderful history of the massive model built to simulate river conditions in her essay The Scale of Nature: Modeling…
-
RBC: Notes on the Third Ecology | Kwinter
Notes on the Third Ecology | Sanford Kwinter Kwinter used the dichotomy of city/nature, rooting in our historic perceptions that evolved in the Industrial era. As mentioned, this concept is characterized by a time “…when immense upheavals in social, economic, and political life transformed the very landscape around us and our relationship to it irreversibly…